“Disputes now disturbed the umpires, and their number was reduced to two. In the eighth round Polkinghorne’s strength began to fail, and a dispute was improvised which occasioned another hour’s delay. With wind regained and strength revived, the tenth round was contested with absolute fury; and, taking kicking with fine contempt, Polkinghorne gripped Cann with leonine majesty, lifted him from the earth in his arms, turned him over his head, and dashed him to the ground with stunning force. As the Cornishman dropped on his knee the fall was disputed, and the turn was disallowed. Polkinghorne then left the ring amid a mighty clamour, and, by reason of his default, the stakes were awarded to Cann. The victor emerged from the terrific hugs of his opponent with a mass of bruises, which proved that kicking was only one degree more effective than hugging.
“A more unsatisfactory issue could hardly have been conceived, and the rival backers forthwith endeavoured to arrange another encounter. Polkinghorne refused to meet Cann, however, unless he discarded his shoes.”
Various devices were attempted to bring them together again, but they failed. Each had a wholesome dread of the other.
But Cann went on as a mighty wrestler. He tried a fall with “Irish Gaffney.” It ended in Cann throwing Gaffney over his back and dislocating his left shoulder, besides cutting his shins to pieces with his boots.
His next famous encounter was with Frost, a moorman of Aveton Gifford, and after a most desperate contest, Cann landed him on his back.[34]
There were other mighty men of the ring, such as a blind wrestler mentioned in the ballad of “Dick Simmins.” In Cornwall wrestling continues, especially at S. Columb and S. Austell, but in Devon it is extinct: it was thought brutal to hack the shins, and after the hobnailed boot, or boot hardened in blood and at the fire, was discarded, it lost its interest.
Sir Thomas Parkyns has been quoted. He published a curious work entitled The Inn Play, or Cornish Hugg Wrestler, and died in 1741. He was an enthusiast for the noble science—the Cornish, and not the Devonshire mode—and would only take into his service men who were good wrestlers. His coachman was one who had shown him the Flying Mare.
Sir Thomas, by his will, left a guinea to be wrestled for at Bradmore, Nottinghamshire, every Midsummer Day, and had his monument carved for him during his lifetime, representing him in wrestling costume, sculptured in marble by his chaplain, prepared for either the Cornish Hug or the Flying Mare. On one side is a well-limbed figure lying above the scythe of Time, the sun rising and shining on him as a wrestler in the prime of life; on the other side is the same figure stretched in a coffin, with Time triumphant above him brandishing his scythe, and the sun setting. There are Latin verses appended, that may be thus translated:—
Here lies, O Time! the victim of thy hand,
The noblest wrestler on the British strand,